ROCKFORD - More than 100 people crammed into a meeting room at Orton Keyes housing development Monday, with each giving input in small groups to define five areas Rockford needs to work on to become a hugely different city.

It was the first of several Transform Rockford "community visioning" sessions being held throughout the area this month. Attendees voted these focus areas as tops for coming up with strategies to turn the city's social and economic problems around: economic development (jobs), education, community safety, diversity, and health and infrastructure.

Tretara Flowers, 33, of Rockford participated and plans to volunteer to drive results for the group and to help those who might have an issue like hers.

A single parent to Antwan Starnes, 4, Flowers said she was convicted of a home invasion when she was 17 years old. She did her time, and is working to complete an online degree in health care administration, but she's found it hard to find a job with the felony on her record.

"I am trying to transform my life, and I have a lot to offer, especially youth. I would say, 'Don't make the mistakes I made.'" She said Transform Rockford is "giving an opportunity to create a vision, so we can partner with people who can make a difference."

The next public visioning session will be from noon to 2 p.m. Thursday at Second Congregational United Church of Christ/First Presbyterian Church of Rockford, 318 N. Church St., Rockford.

Transform Rockford expects to develop strategies this spring based on the community visioning sessions. The aim is for government, business, faith and nonprofit groups and individuals to get behind a plan to turn the city from the third most miserable in America, according to Forbes, into a top-25 city by 2025.